Why Oregon is a swing state

[Downnice]

In 2012 Oregon was closer than New Mexico and consider this. 2012 was a poor campaign for the Republicans. In 2000 Oregon was one of the closest states in the country and 2004 was close as well.

2012 all counties were lower than 2008 and Wasco county went to Romney as did Marion county. A solid Republican can take a large county like Clackamas county as well as Tillamook and Columbia county. If they can win those counties and make Lane and Benton counties a little closer a Republican can win this county

[Sol]

Oregon isn't a swing state. Bush was only close in 2000 because of a strong Nader performance.

[Downnice]

in 2004 it was close as well

Kerry 51
Bush 47

[sg0508]

It's not a swing state without a third party candidate siphoning democratic support.  Bush's performance in 2004 was likely due to incumbency and the fact that 2000 was very tight.  He was able to draw out a lot of conservative support downstate.

Keep this in mind and I posed this question in another thread.  It's been since 2002 (Gordon Smith) since the GOP has won ANY statewide race there, which is pathetic.  The state party is all but dead.  The cupboard is bare and in states like CO, it's the same thing.

[Downnice]

Yes Oregon has not elected nothing since 2002 but keep this in mind. Obama has been horrific on civil liberties and Rand Paul like Ron Paul is much better on this issue than Obama and Clinton. Add that with Oregon being unstable economically I really do believe it will be close for this election.

[JRP1994]

Oregon:

PVI: D+5
Elasticity: 1.16 (11th most elastic state)


Analysis:

Oregon is a democratic-leaning state that can become competitive under the right circumstances. Though it is highly elastic, it is not a swing-state, as the Democrats outnumber the Republicans in the state by a good margin. The state tends to favor environmentalist and socially-liberal policies, which makes it a poor fit for the modern GOP. It is not near the tipping-point of the nation; a Democrat that loses Oregon has likely already lost FL, OH, VA, IA, CO, NH, PA, WI, MN, NV, ME-02, MI, and NM.

However, as evidenced by 2000 and 2004, Oregon can become a battleground state in an election in which the Republican candidate wins. And the state's high elasticity score indicates that, if a moderate/centrist Republican candidate (think McCain 2000) seriously contested Oregon (serious meaning with the intensity of campaigning in Ohio), it could become much closer.

Preliminary 2016 Rating : LIKELY DEMOCRAT, due to high elasticity and uncertainty about the 2016 political climate.

[greenforest32]

In 2012 Oregon was closer than New Mexico

?

2012 OR results: 54.24% Obama, 42.15% Romney
2012 NM results: 52.99% Obama, 42.84% Romney.

I do think Oregon would be closer than New Mexico in 2016 given New Mexico's trends and demographics (Martinez as Republican VP could prevent that though) but I doubt Republicans win either state. Seems like wishful thinking that ignores a lot of the recent results. Are you going to say New Mexico will be a swing state in 2016 because of 2000 and 2004?

What's really been killing Republicans here lately is the recent margins in Multnomah county (about 20% of the state population) and the trend + population growth in Washington county (now 14% of the state population). Democrats hitting upper 70s in Multnomah combined with upper 50s in Washington is very hard to overcome and these counties are growing fast relative to the counties Republicans win strongly in slowly growing or contracting (in terms of population) so that's only going to get worse. Washington county's population could catch up to Multnomah's eventually, when you look at the population growth data/forecasts: http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/OEA/docs/demographic/County_forecast_March_2013.xls

It could actually get worse for Republicans if Democrats start hitting the 60s in Washington county and Marion county begins to lean-D.

[bedstuy]

Oregon is not a swing state and it's trending Democratic.  Plus, the Republican areas of the state are losing population or about static.  Meanwhile, metro Portland is growing.

Maybe if Republican can get more ironic votes from hipsters.

[barfbag]

Oregon isn't a swing state, but a battleground state. If the Republicans win by enough, it could switch or be close. For the most part, Oregon goes Democrat.

[Frodo]

Keep this in mind and I posed this question in another thread.  It's been since 2002 (Gordon Smith) since the GOP has won ANY statewide race there, which is pathetic.  The state party is all but dead.  The cupboard is bare and in states like CO, it's the same thing.

Considering the narrow margins by which Democrats control the legislature in both Oregon and Colorado (based on 2012 results), one would think that the Republican Party in both states is still fairly potent.  It needs only a handful of seats (or less) to win back control of either one.  

[greenforest32]

Keep this in mind and I posed this question in another thread.  It's been since 2002 (Gordon Smith) since the GOP has won ANY statewide race there, which is pathetic.  The state party is all but dead.  The cupboard is bare and in states like CO, it's the same thing.

Considering the narrow margins by which Democrats control the legislature in both Oregon and Colorado (based on 2012 results), one would think that the Republican Party in both states is still fairly potent.  It needs only a handful of seats (or less) to win back control of either one.  

True but ~62% of OR state house seats and ~63% of OR state senate seats have D+ PVI ratings (according to 2004/2008 PVI, 2008/2012 PVI probably hasn't changed much). These articles have more background on the state legislature for those interested:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/25/1225252/-2014-Oregon-State-House-elections
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/10/1220721/-2014-Oregon-State-Senate-elections

[barfbag]

With all things being equal, Oregon would be 54-46.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

2012 all counties were lower than 2008 and Wasco county went to Romney as did Marion county. A solid Republican can take a large county like Clackamas county as well as Tillamook and Columbia county. If they can win those counties and make Lane and Benton counties a little closer a Republican can win this county

Less Democratic you mean? Because that's not saying much. Romney improved in 44 out of 50 states + D.C.

[Non Swing Voter]

Keep this in mind and I posed this question in another thread.  It's been since 2002 (Gordon Smith) since the GOP has won ANY statewide race there, which is pathetic.  The state party is all but dead.  The cupboard is bare and in states like CO, it's the same thing.

Considering the narrow margins by which Democrats control the legislature in both Oregon and Colorado (based on 2012 results), one would think that the Republican Party in both states is still fairly potent.  It needs only a handful of seats (or less) to win back control of either one.  

Legislatures often skew more Republican than statewide races.  In Virginia for example, Republicans win a lot of seats by 10 point margins while Democrats win fewer seats by 30+ margins in NOVA>  I'd imagine it's similar in Oregon... Democrats probably "waste" a lot of votes by winning Portland seats by huge margins.  This doesn't really correlate with statewide races though, where those Portland votes outweigh rural votes.

[illegaloperation]

A Republican presidential candidate winning Oregon would be like Obama winning Indiana in 2008.

Maybe it can happen once, but it's unlikely to be replicated.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Oregon isn't a swing state. Bush was only close in 2000 because of a strong Nader performance.

Consider, though, that a lot of people in the eastern part of the state were turned off by the environmental policies of Democrats.  I suspect that if the networks hadn't called Florida so early, then Bush would have carried it.

[bedstuy]

Oregon isn't a swing state. Bush was only close in 2000 because of a strong Nader performance.

Consider, though, that a lot of people in the eastern part of the state were turned off by the environmental policies of Democrats.  I suspect that if the networks hadn't called Florida so early, then Bush would have carried it.

Oregon is a vote by mail state, so... no.

[Mehmentum]

Yes Oregon has not elected nothing since 2002 but keep this in mind. Obama has been horrific on civil liberties and Rand Paul like Ron Paul is much better on this issue than Obama and Clinton. Add that with Oregon being unstable economically I really do believe it will be close for this election.

By that logic, Obama would have done poorly there in 2012.

[Linus Van Pelt]

Elasticity: 1.16 (11th most elastic state)

These numbers have been popping up on various threads in the trends board recently, but they are confused. They come a post by Nate Silver that is the only example I know of of incorrect mathematics from him. What he is really measuring in that list is the percentage of voters who are in lopsided demographics. So a state with a lot of voters in 50-50 demographics gets calculated as "elastic", while a state with voters in lopsided demographics gets calculated as "inelastic". This is a statistical mistake; there's no entailment between a group's proneness to swings and its internal lopsidedness. Suppose a group votes exactly 50-50 in every election, regardless of the national result, and some other group swings between 80-20 D and 70-30 D, with the swings correlated to the national swings. Silver's measure would count the 50-50 demographic as the more elastic. Indeed, he would count it as maximally elastic, since it is exactly 50-50! But that's ridiculous. A demographic that votes exactly the same way every election should be counted as maximally inelastic. I like Silver's work, but he is wrong about this one.

Edit: just to add to this (in a more technical way), there is a notion in mathematics  of the elasticity of a function, where E f(x) = d log f(x) / d log(x). In principle a series of state election results could be thought of as the values of a function, either a function of time or a function of national results (in the latter case, so long as there are no exact repetitions). Now, neither of these functions would be differentiable, so the elasticity of these functions wouldn't be defined in a strict mathematical sense, but social scientists do often calculate elasticities from discrete functions by a linear regression. So some measures of states' elasticities probably could be calculated in this way, but it is a somewhat complicated matter exactly which function to use.

[barfbag]

Yes Oregon has not elected nothing since 2002 but keep this in mind. Obama has been horrific on civil liberties and Rand Paul like Ron Paul is much better on this issue than Obama and Clinton. Add that with Oregon being unstable economically I really do believe it will be close for this election.

By that logic, Obama would have done poorly there in 2012.

Well Romney didn't spend any time or money there.

[hopper]

Oregon is not a swing state and it's trending Democratic.  Plus, the Republican areas of the state are losing population or about static.  Meanwhile, metro Portland is growing.

Maybe if Republican can get more ironic votes from hipsters.

It trended Republican in 2012.

True Republican areas(the western part of the state) is not gaining population like the Portland metro area is though.

[hopper]

A Republican presidential candidate winning Oregon would be like Obama winning Indiana in 2008.

Maybe it can happen once, but it's unlikely to be replicated.

Yup almost happened in 2000!

[hopper]

Oregon isn't a swing state. Bush was only close in 2000 because of a strong Nader performance.

Consider, though, that a lot of people in the eastern part of the state were turned off by the environmental policies of Democrats.   I suspect that if the networks hadn't called Florida so early, then Bush would have carried it.

The far eastern part of Oregon is more like Idaho politically than Oregon.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Oregon, like many Western states (California, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico) has a majority urban/metropolitan population that has trended heavily towards the Democrats. The Republicans have seen their biggest gains in vote share in more rural and sparsely populated parts of the state.

Part of the advantage for the Democrats here is that they can focus just on the major metropolitan areas and still win. The Republicans have to devote resources to both the rural areas as well as the suburbs if they want to win in Oregon. Same thing is true in the aforementioned other Western states.

[Blue3]

Didn't the Oregon GOP just elect some really crazy guy to be their state party chairman?